Even Spam Can Benefit From Professional Copywriting

I’ve written about copy writing and why you should hire a professional copywriter in the past, but every once in a while you find something that drives home the point you are trying to make. I found a stunning example of this the other day, and I just had to share it with the Brandscaping.ca readers.

This is the email I found in my inbox the other day. Interesting subject line “Your.Your Tax Payment ID: 0103346794 has been rejceted.”

Upon reviewing the document, you will notice there are at least 32 spelling errors or typos, as well as poor grammar throughout. Visually, it’s not a bad looking document. It’s simple and to the point. They want me to click on the link to learn why my Federal Tax Payment “has been not accepted.”

Had the author of this letter chosen even a mediocre copywriter, the chances of getting someone to click on the link would be exponentially higher. If all the copywriter did was correct the spelling and tweak the phrasing, you can bet that more people would click through to whatever site EFTPS is pushing.

Or would they?

This email is so bad that the reader might click on the link just to see what else they can find, thinking “Are they really this horrible, and if they are, what does their website look like?”

What a professional copywriter would tell you is that yes, an email like this might help you generate some clicks, but the damage that it does to your brand is not worth it. Unless your business is only interested in creating traffic instead of trying to create a relationship with your visitors, this is probably not a great tool for you.

If you are going to send your customers an email, make sure you are not wasting their time. Provide them with quality content and show them that you are not just trying to trick them into visiting you, or else it’s pretty much the internet equivalent of “Hey little kid, want some candy?”